Clay Sails

Thursday, July 28, 2005

If you haven't read the new Harry Potter book yet, you are a sad, hopeless human being and you deserve to have your fun, if not the remainder of your entire worthless, boring life spoiled.

That being said...

The new Harry Potter book has a scene in it that inserts J.K. Rowling at the very pinnacle of fantasy writing:

It is a scene that solidifies the venerable Dumbledore in the ranks of fantasy literature's greatest wizards.

I often wonder who would win in a battle between Dumbledore and Gandalf and I typically chose the Ganster because he is so incredibly full of cojones for taking on the Balrog, among other things. However, I have ever had a soft spot for Dumbledore and feel that the two wizards would be good friends, should they ever meet. Should they not become friends, and instead fight it out to the Death (or some close approximation thereof), I feel that Gandalf is more powerful, and Dumbledore is more human, and therefore the former would win the duel, but only due to power and not due to inherent worthiness. If you catch my drift.

Given that, I must state here, for the record, that this scene in the newest Harry Potter book (Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince) ratchet's up the ante in a huge way: Dumbledore just grew a monstrous, cauldron-sized pair of cojones that even Gandalf might find himself faintly jealous of.

Bravo, Dumbledore and, of course, bravo Rowling.

By the way, if you have not yet read or do not intend to read this newest book, or if you think that 'waiting for the movie' is sufficient, please ignore this post. This erroneous lapse in good judgement, whatever your other admirable qualities, is your loss entirely and none of my own.

Wow. Made it over a month without posting. Hi, blog. Or is it an anti-blog now that all of you have ceased reading it? No matter.

Life is fine. I'm busy these days. Not in front of a computer very often. Rarely feel like sharing with the world. Part of it is boredom. Bored with school. Bored with complaining. You know, the routine.

Politics? Meh.

So and so is a corporate lawyer who will negatively alter the balance of the supreme court?

Meh.

Knew this was coming years ago. Especially after Bush beat Kerry.

Liberals will complain that the guy isn't as liberal as Gerry Brown or Ted Kennedy.

Meh.

Life in America will suck for freedom and liberty and all the things I hold dear?

Meh.

No it won't. Life for me will stay the same. Life for people on the fringe will suck slightly more.

People with ideas.

People who want 'revolution'.

I read an article last week by a young twenty one year old whippershnapper.

He was talking about how his generation didn't have any identity and only anti-identity, embodied by automatically embracing hollow, meaningless slogans and advertising imagery (i.e. all the cheap Malaysian T-shirts you see with phoney witticisms and company logos on them). He had other good points, too.

He said his generation was just following the hollow, meaninglessness of the 'generation before him', the one ten years prior to his at 21.

I'm 31.

I think I embody that generation he is talking about.

Even though I think generations should be longer than 10 years.

Even though I think thinking about generations is a stupid marketing gimick since people are born in a torrent, a stream, a river, not in an age-block of ten or twenty years.

Anyway, he ultimately concluded that revolution was silly and some rediculous Italian anarchists who collectively named themselves after a soccer player and think that identity is a prison were dweebs.

Still, I thought the Italians were cool.

They appealed to my inner cave-man.

My desire to return to grunting and gesturing instead of actual words. Because, really, my needs are simple. All the complex thoughts and ideas I have are generally just whimsies based on other whimsies, rather than true desires or human needs.